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Posted by Gerda Wever-Rabehl Aug 5, 2006 |
Landscape is a dimension of our personal and collective history. Landscapes accompany our individual, national and collective lives. In this companionship, both partners are impacted. Landscape impacts our becoming, while we in turn impact the landscape with our actions.
Certainly for me, landscapes have been formative- my existence is intimately connected with the landscapes and horizons of the area around the city of Nijmegen. Over 2,000 years old, it is the oldest city in the Netherlands. Nijmegen is situated on the banks of the river Waal, and is surrounded by hills, woods and polders. I love this diversity of the landscape of my youth and think that I will always return to it.
But it is not just the natural landscape that has an impact on our identity. The artifacts of collective life and memory- buildings and monuments- also leave their marks. Standing on the other side of the river Waal, the silhouette of the city centre in the background is a magnificent mix of historic and modern buildings and monuments. This diversity was born, at least in part, in conflict. Much of the inner city of Nijmegen was destroyed in the accidental bombardment of 1944.
The particulars of those formative landscapes become the particulars of ones self, of ones memory and identity. This is what landscape is- a deposit of our personal and collective history.
In the next few weeks, I will explore aspects of landscape and self. What are our connections with nature and landscape? How do we shape the sensuous ties with the earth? Is, as some suggest, our connection with nature and landscape in crisis? Is this crisis a reflection of the crisis of modern man?
In the first article in this series, I will explore running as a mode of interacting with the environment. How do runners, especially long-distance runners, perceive the landscape in which they move? How does it differ from other modes of being and what can we learn from it?
To read the article, click here